Marry, Kiss, Kill Read online

  Advance Praise

  “Raymond Chandler meets Chelsea Handler — a hardboiled, sexy, funny book.”

  — David Hyde Pierce,

  acclaimed Broadway actor and star of Frasier

  “Anne Flett-Giordano is a writer who constantly surprises and delights me. The real mystery here is: why hasn’t she written a mystery before now? Marry, Kiss, Kill is dead-on!”

  — Tom Fontana,

  creator of Oz, Copper, and Borgia and award-winning writer of St. Elsewhere, Strip Search, The Philanthropist, and many more

  “For those who like their mysteries more breezy than brooding, Flett-Giordano delivers the goods. Marry, Kiss, Kill is a fun, twisty romp that keeps the tone airborne even when detailing a murder that suggests how Titus Andronicus might have behaved if left in charge of a day spa. I enjoyed its cast of soldiers, schemers, and seducers but most of all Nola MacIntire, a shrewd, self-deprecating sleuth who knows that, for Santa Barbara blondes, the real killers are sun, carbs, and time.”

  — Joe Keenan,

  author of My Lucky Star and other novels and award-winning writer of Frasier, Desperate Housewives, and other TV shows and films

  “[An] enjoyable romp [for] fans of Evanovich and other wisecracking lady sleuths.”

  — Booklist

  “Flett-Giordano’s first novel is a deliciously barbed satire of the Southern California one percent in the satisfying guise of a sunshine noir, with a zinger-to-page ratio high enough to have me flipping between laughter and envy.”

  — Howard Korder,

  award-winning executive producer of Boardwalk Empire and writer of such films and plays as Lakeview Terrace, Boy’s Life, and Search and Destroy

  “Flett-Giordano has written a smart, irreverent, and delicious yarn. Murder and mayhem in picaresque Santa Barbara. . . ah, how sweet it is.”

  — Wendie Malick,

  star of Hot in Cleveland, Just Shoot Me, and Dream On

  “Deeply twisted and deeply funny, Marry, Kiss, Kill is a laugh-out-loud murder mystery. Flett-Giordano’s delightfully sardonic sense of humor is outrageous and satisfying. Can’t wait for the next adventure!”

  — Jane Leeves,

  star of Hot in Cleveland and Frasier

  Copyright © 2015 by Anne Flett-Giordano

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Marry, Kiss, Kill is a work of fiction, and the characters are all invented. Any resemblence to actual people is an unintended coincidence.

  Published by Prospect Park Books

  2359 Lincoln Avenue

  Altadena, California 91001

  www.prospectparkbooks.com

  Distributed by Consortium Books Sales & Distribution www.cbsd.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Flett-Giordano, Anne.

  Marry, kiss, kill / by Anne Flett-Giordano. -- First edition.

  pages; cm

  ISBN 978-1-938849-50-3

  I. Title.

  PS3606.L488M37 2015

  813’.6--dc23

  2014041277

  Simultaneously printed in hardcover and softcover editions

  Cover design by John Roshell

  Page layout by Amy Inouye, Future Studio

  First edition, first printing

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  With thanks to my indulgent friends and family who allowed me to assign their names to sometimes-vile characters, with whom they share no actual traits whatsoever. If your name is in this book, it’s because I love you. This includes the city of Santa Barbara, which is truly heaven on earth. I can’t imagine a lovelier, safer place to live. That, however, would have made for a very dull book.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  One

  “I see a sloe-eyed lady . . .

  ’Bout five-foot-three I’d say . . .

  The way she works that long black hair . . .

  She takes my breath away . . .

  Oh, Doctor . . .”

  The pretty woman smiled bashfully as Charley flashed his infectious grin but made no move toward her purse as she passed his open guitar case.

  “But baby, she ain’t stoppin’ . . .

  Got no time for me today . . .

  Got a ticket for the movie . . .

  And that film’s about to play.

  That’s why I got the blues . . .

  That’s right . . .

  The Santa Barbara International Film Festival blues, blues, blues . . .

  Yeah, we got JLaw, Pitt, and Gosling . . .

  And don’t forget Penelope Cruz, Cruz, Cruz.”

  As often happened, the woman stopped, darted back, made a hurried, almost embarrassed donation, then flitted away again.

  “Thank you, Miss.”

  Thank you and then some. It had been a dog’s life since the sixteenth president had graced Charley’s guitar case. The bad economy had trickled down from bankers and brokers to teachers and shopkeepers and hit street musicians smash-mouth in their drinking money. Even the farmers’ market crowd had started slipping their change back into the pockets of their skinny jeans. Not that you’d know it tonight. The film festival was in full swing. The crowd outside the Arlington Theater was drowning out the mariachis at Carlito’s across the street, and a Batman beacon lit up the sky. Somehow they’d managed to churn out another one, with Ben Affleck as the dark-knight superhero donning his cape to rid the world of Comicon villainy.

  A Batman with a utility belt full of Lipitor seemed AARPathetic to Charley, but No Crime Stopping for Old Men, or whatever it was called, was catnip to the excited crowd. Cheers went up as glitter
ing movie stars stepped out of their limos. They waved and smiled, then disappeared under a swarm of paparazzi like so much sequined roadkill under the weight of a million flies.

  Charley had always liked the Arlington. Its vaulted forecourt provided a shady retreat where a homeless man could come in outta the sun. On hot afternoons he’d stake a spot on the cool Spanish tile by the fountain and smoke a bone or lift a brew. Tonight his spot was covered with a sea of red carpet and mingling VIPs sipping champagne, but Charley didn’t mind. He was happy just being part of the general hustle and flow.

  Pocketing the five, so the crowd wouldn’t think he was so flush they could afford to miss him with their quarters, Charley strummed his old guitar and struck up another rhyme.

  This time he singled out two hipsters in stingy-brim fedoras and expensive kicks, each trying to outshout the other on their iPhones. There was no shortage of junior nobodies, up from L.A., this time of year. Too ironically T-shirted to be agents, too freshly showered to be writers, they were all Bluetooth and no bite.

  Normally Charley chose some flattering aspect of a person’s appearance to sing about, not only because they were more likely to pony up for a compliment than a slam, but also because he enjoyed making people feel good. The kind of good they might pay forward as they went about their day. But these two iHeads offered precious little to inspire any random act of musical kindness, and tonight Charley couldn’t resist having a little fun.

  “Now here we got two big wheels . . .

  Their iPhones say it all . . .

  But they ain’t making big deals . . .

  It’s their mamas made them call . . .

  Yeah, they got the blues . . .

  The Santa Barbara International Film Festival

  blues, blues, blues . . .

  From their ponytails and Prada . . .

  To their iron-on tattoo. . . oo . . . oos . . .”

  The crowd laughed. One of the hipsters, annoyed at being singled out, tossed him a dime in disdain, but before Charley could thank him kindly, the ushers threw open the doors to the theater, and the rush was on to get in and score a good seat.

  Later, after the people lucky enough to have wrangled tickets were inside watching the movie and the rest had started to straggle home, Charley scooped up his night’s earnings and returned his guitar to its case. A little quick addition put him close to twenty-eight bucks up, twice his usual take off the college kids on dates outside the Fiesta Five.

  As he made his way toward Dargan’s Pub, he marveled at how good it felt to have coin in his pocket. Adding to his pleasure was the fact that it was another warm California night. Crazy warm for February and already smelling of jasmine, a combination that always made him feel nostalgic. For what, he didn’t know. Surely not his childhood, growing up in Chicago. If he was there now, he’d be fighting snow and cold just to keep alive. Nah, Santa Barbara was the town for him. The pink-tinged adobe and the courtyards full of bougainvillea made him feel like he was in Mexico. Not the Mexico with drug-gang killings and Montezuma’s stomach grinder, but the one you saw on travel posters. Warm and lazy and anxious to serve up a cold cerveza. Maybe tonight he’d spring for a Dos Equis when he got to Dargan’s instead of his usual Bud. Why not? he thought. Tonight he could afford it. Yeah, life was good. And then it wasn’t.

  Lying on the wet grass, one eye open, blood running from his mouth and two gaping holes in his chest, Charley stared at the Batman signal in the sky. Even if help was out there, he knew it would arrive too late.

  The police report was short and to the point. African-American male, late forties, found dead. Two bullet wounds to the chest. Sunken Lawn Courthouse.

  Two

  Nola MacIntire let go of the tiny handfuls of skin she’d been pinching back behind each ear and watched her smile lines bungee-jump back into place in the bathroom mirror. Geez, where had they all come from? She must have spent the last twenty years giggling like an idiot. But there was no time to indulge her nasal-labial fixation today. Thankfully, she had a murder to solve.

  Tall, tan, and born-again blond, having accepted L’Oréal into her heart when she started going mousy brown in high school, Nola was also Deputy Chief of Detectives for the Santa Barbara Police Department. Back in college she’d wanted to join the FBI, but her friendly beach-babe demeanor, and the fact that she was a card-carrying liberal, had prompted the recruiter to conclude her first and only interview with a remark about how much money a pretty girl could make just doing the weather on TV.

  Fortunately, the local P.D. had come to prize what the Feds had overlooked. Nola was a tenacious puzzle solver, and the puzzle she liked solving best, the one that sent a sharp little tingle up her spine every time, was who murdered whom — and why.

  The five a.m. homicide call had landed in her lap like Christmas in July. Three weeks with hardly more to show than a little drug-related stabbing in the rundown college playground of Isla Vista had left her with far too much time to think, and what she thought about was growing old.

  She’d pushed it to the back of her mind at twenty-eight, rationalized it at thirty, and tried to broker peace with it at thirty-two, but on the eve of her thirty-seventh birthday, her eyes welled up when she passed the pretzel place that had once been her favorite Betsey Johnson store. Nola had long ago transitioned from Betsey’s colorful hooker couture into Tommy Hilfiger’s All-American Girl, which she could already feel morphing into Donna Karan, the last stop on the road to Chico’s and death. Even the luckiest Cinderella only got one shot at her twenties.

  “Knock, knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Your thirtieth birthday. I’m afraid I’m going have to take away all your silly party clothes.”

  “Oh, my God! Even the accessories?”

  “Yep. The skintight skin, the boundless energy after midnight, it’s all gotta go.”

  “But why didn’t you warn me?!”

  “I tried, ma’am, but you were too busy dancing.”

  “ ‘Ma’am’ !?!”

  Benjamin Button had it right. Aging in reverse was the way to go. Getting younger and stronger every day. Sure, you still ended up in diapers, but you were little and cute, with people lining up to bounce you on their knees. It was a win-win.

  Slapping on some ridiculously expensive moisturizer, hoping “Miracle Lift” wasn’t just corporate-code for how much cash it lifted out of a gullible blonde’s wallet, Nola ran a hairbrush through her loose, shoulder-length hair, grabbed a lipstick and mascara, and called it a morning. If God didn’t want women to apply makeup at stoplights, he wouldn’t have invented rearview mirrors. Checking out her amber-eyed reflection in the mirror one last time, she smiled and thought, Oh, what the hell. If Betty White can be fabulous at any age, so can I.

  Back in the bedroom, she slipped into a Rag & Bone Valentina sweater and black pants, then tossed her closet looking for any two sandals that might pass as a matching pair. She kicked both shoes off at the same time every night, so how was it possible that they never managed to land in the same place? Finding a match, she slipped them on, grabbed her phone from the charger, pursed her gun to avoid the bulky shoulder holster, and headed out the door. In the hallway waiting for the elevator, she did a few calf stretches. Inside the elevator she did a couple of toe raises. Morning workout, done and done.

  The air outside the condo complex was nipple-freezing cold. The warm winter night had been swallowed up by a thick layer of fog blowing in off the ocean. Across Cabrillo Boulevard, the volleyball poles on East Beach rose ghostly in the mist. It was pretty as a postcard but hell on her hair. She’d have to keep the top up on the T-bird till the sun came out and burned away the gloom.

  Climbing into the little black Ford, she pressed the ignition, blasted the heat, and wondered how much longer she could go on having “Fun Fun Fun” before she’d start craving the comforts of a more grownup car. Time, she realized, not Daddy, would take the T-bird away. Cranking up her favorite vintage Beyoncé, she
gunned the little convertible’s big engine and shot up Cabrillo toward the scene of the crime. “Who runs the world, girls . . .”

  Santa Barbara’s elegant courthouse was smack in the center of town and a major tourist attraction. People stood in line to climb the clock tower, and concerts were held on the vast sunken lawn. Now the lawn was cordoned off with yellow police tape, and generator-powered work lights were infusing the early morning quiet with a sinister hum.

  Nola pulled up and parked in front of the Coffee Cat. The kids inside, just firing up the espresso machines, were agog at the activity across the street. Wishing caffeine came in handy inhalers, like asthma meds, she resisted the urge to go in and order a double nonfat cap and sneak a meaningful glance at the muffins. The familiar blue Audi parked up ahead of her meant she was already late to the party. Stepping out of the car into the dusky overcast, she crossed the street and headed toward the lights.

  Three

  Detective Lieutenant Anthony Angellotti stood waiting by the body. Halfway across the damp lawn, Nola stopped to remove the orange and red Kate Spade slingbacks she’d eventually located behind a gym bag in her closet. All those seminars at the academy about emotional and physical burnout, but not a word about how hard homicide was on your shoes.

  “Too pretty not to buy, even though they’re killing your feet?” Tony called out.

  “Too expensive to be ruined by wet grass,” she called back.

  “Sorry, forgot to spread my cloak,” he said, doffing an imaginary Musketeers hat as she crossed the wide lawn to join him, shoes in hand.

  “If chivalry were any deader, we’d run out of crime-scene tape.” She laughed, marveling at her partner’s radiant good humor, in spite of having been dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn to view a freshly decomposing former human being.

  In addition to his perennially sunny disposition, Tony had the kind of boyish, Paul McCartney good looks that never seemed to get old. He and Nola had slept together a couple of times in the early days, but the relationship thing had never kicked in for either of them. A blessing in disguise, since it had allowed them to remain friends for more than fifteen years. Fifteen years? Where had they gone?